DB Schenker Begins Rail Transports from Leipzig to a Production Site in China

30th Sep 2011

DB Schenker Rail Automotive, Deutsche Bahn’s specialist for automotive rail freight transport, is overseeing auto part transports from Leipzig to Shenyang in northeastern China on behalf of BMW. A train loaded with 40 containers departed from the Leipzig-Wahren transshipment terminal this morning. The train will take three weeks to complete the nearly 11,000-kilometer journey. This is already the fourth container train to transport parts and components to BMW’s Shenyang plant in the Liaoning province, where they will be used in the assembly of BMW vehicles. Beginning in late November, trains will depart from Leipzig once a day.

“With a transit time of 23 days, the direct trains are more than twice as fast as maritime transport followed by transport to the Chinese hinterland. This is a major incentive for the Eurasian Land Bridge. We are grateful to BMW for placing their trust in this environmentally friendly transport route. BMW’s trust is further proof that we are considered a strong and reliable partner of the automotive industry and its suppliers,” said Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, Member of the Management Board of DB Mobility Logistics AG responsible for Transportation and Logistics.

The route reaches China via Poland, Belarus and Russia. DB Schenker Rail cooperates with partner rail companies in each of the countries to oversee the trains. The containers have to be transferred by crane to different gauges twice – first to Russian broad gauge at the Polish-Belarusian border and then back to standard gauge at the Russian-Chinese border in Manzhouli.

DB Schenker Logistics, the logistics division of DB, has set up a new logistics center in northern Leipzig to supply BMW plants in Shenyang and Rosslyn, South Africa, with auto parts. The containers are loaded at the logistics center and then transported to the transshipment terminal by truck.

Some 8,000 different components from BMW supplier plants are received, packaged and loaded onto containers according to delivery requirements in the logistics center’s roughly 63,000 square-meter warehouse area. Sheet metal parts are also treated in Leipzig for maritime transport through different climate zones. Once the logistics center is operating at full capacity, around 50 containers will be able to be loaded daily. Schenker Deutschland AG is hiring 600 new employees for the center.

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DB Schenker is one of the automotive industry’s largest logistics partners worldwide. It transported around three million finished vehicles by rail in 2010.

Some 250 trains – loaded with auto parts and new cars – travel daily between Portugal and Russia and between Scandinavia and Turkey. DB Schenker Contract Logistics is the automotive industry’s partner for the production of six million vehicles a year.